Dee Snider To Release Broadway Album and Autobiography

May 8 is a big day for Dee Snider. Not only will the hard rock renaissance man, who sings, dances, acts, appears on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ and hosts his own radio show, release ‘Dee Does Broadway’ but he will also release his first autobiography, ‘Shut Up and Give Me the Mic.’ Yes, Dee, whatever you say!

First things first: The disc features Snider singing Broadway show tunes, with an array of guests from the “Great White Way.” He sings with Cyndi Lauper on ‘Sweet Charity’’s ‘Big Spender’; with Clay Aiken of ‘American Idol’ on the ‘Guys and Dolls’ classic ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight’’ and with Mark Wood of Trans-Siberian Orchestra playing violin on the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ ballad ‘Music of the Night.’

He keeps it all in the family, too, as he performs ‘The Joint Is Jumpin’ from ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ with his oldest son, Jesse “Blaze” Snider. Songs are also featured from classic Broadway shows including ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Chicago,’ ‘The Threepenny Opera,’ ‘Anything Goes’ and ‘Sweeney Todd.’

Dee clearly knows what he wants to do with his life besides rockin’.

The record was the result of voicemails that Dee and Alice Cooper exchanged in 2009, during which they sang Broadway tunes to on another. (Why not release a whole album of those messages? Just a thought!) That, combined with Snider’s appearance in the ‘Rock of Ages’ musical, fueled his fire to do Broadway his way. Call it the ‘Great Dee Way,’ if you will.

“Over the past year I have worked closely with my team and collaborators picking from decades of musical hits with only two rules: The song had to speak to me as a singer on some level, and it could not be a rock song to begin with,” Snider said in a statement. “No ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ ‘Grease,’ ‘Hair,’ ‘Rent,’ ‘Rocky Horror,’ etc. What would be the challenge in that?”

He continued, “There are many who think doing an album of rocked out show tunes is pure insanity on my part. Apparently, they haven’t seen any photos of me from the ’70s and ’80s. Could I have been in a more theatrical band? Ever since I was a kid, I’d heard the real power inherent in a lot of songs from musicals, and this record gives me the chance to show it.”